This blog post has been re-purposed from a “Listen User Profile” of actual Listen customers detailing their experience with Listen Solutions.


In 1998, Montclair State University’s new President, Susan Cole, PhD, inspired the faculty and staff with the vision to take the renowned educational institution from its established excellence to contemporary superiority. To accomplish this, the university needed to grow. But at nearly 100 years of age, the university was already filled to capacity with enrollment at 13,800 students. Their resolve? To build the campus for the next century.
 
The centerpiece of the grand construction initiative is University Hall, a 270,000 sq. ft. edifice housing numerous offices and instructional spaces and sporting the newest audiovisual capabilities. Among the most impressive rooms are the auditorium classrooms: six that seat 100 students and one that seats 200 students.
 
In these spacious auditoriums, each pair of seats is equipped with a flush-mount digital conferencing microphone. Each mic has a push button that activates and deactivates it. A light ring around the mouthpiece illuminates to indicate when a microphone is active.
 
MSU’s Assistant Director of Academic Technology John O’Brien explained that the Listen microphone systems are configured to allow 4 microphones to be active at one time. When an additional microphone is activated, the first active microphone is automatically deactivated. Vice President for IT, Dr. Ed Chapel said, “We call them the ‘touch-me’ mics. When you have a class that seats over 100 people, with one microphone per two students, if all mics were to be open at once the ambient noise would be very distracting.
 
With this design, the microphones are muted and when students want to speak, they just touch the mic button to open it. It’s conceptually very simple, but you’d be surprised at how much hard work went into designing this microphone system.”
 
The Listen Digital Conferencing System is connected to a robust archiving system, which allows for recording and management of all audio proceedings. Together with the latest video conferencing and broadcasting equipment, these instruction spaces are revolutionizing the way the faculty teaches.
 
 “The audiovisual upgrades have literally changed the way they teach. These capabilities require less preparation time and are much more effective for student learning. Most faculty had never comprehended this type of classroom before,” O’Brien said. He further explained that the design team, headed by communications and acoustics consulting firm Shen, Misolm & Wilke, intentionally excluded transparency projectors from the rooms to encourage faculty to adapt to the richer digital technologies.
 
At the opening in January 2006, 280 faculty members were introduced to the new University Hall and its marvelous technology environment. O’Brien was thrilled that all the equipment worked as intended. The faculty members were “immensely impressed” with the set up and with the new possibilities the technologies afforded them.
 
The Listen Digital Conferencing System has been particularly instrumental in several MSU sponsored events, including a press conference with New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg. Members of the media could participate in the press conference by speaking their questions into the Listen microphones. Live local and cross-country presentations have also benefited from the audio support provided by the Listen Digital Conferencing System. The systems are working so well that many conferences are conducted in these technology-rich environments.
 
The grandeur of University Hall is impressive indeed. What adds to the marvel is that the audiovisual aspect was completed on a budget less than 50 percent of the original project budget. The winning bid was proffered by Allentown-based AV integrator Vistacom and was based on durability, cost-efficiency, and manageability.
 
President Cole’s vision of building for a new century has certainly come to fruition in less than a decade. University Hall – and its technology rich rooms – is just the thing needed for the current enrollment of 16,000 students – a 30 percent increase to start MSU’s second century of history.